Nelson opens up lead over Mack, but what about Broward's LeMieux?

Bad news for former U.S. Sen. George LeMieux, the Lighthouse Point Republican who’d like to challenge Nelson in the November election.

A new Quinnipiac University poll released Thursday that Nelson opend up an eight-point lead over Republican Connie Mack in a head to head matchup.

Nelson had 44 percent to Mack’s 36 percent, Quinnipiac said. In January, the two candidates were tied, 41 percent for Nelson and 40 percent for Mack.

Unfortunately for LeMieux, he wasn’t even included in the poll.

Peter Brown, assistant assistant director of the Quinnipiac University Polling Institute, said the Senate contest was added onto a much bigger poll of Florida and other key swing states to measure voters’ views of the presidential race.

He said there was limited room on the poll, just enough for one Senate question, and pollsters picked Mack because he was so far ahead of LeMieux and other Republican candidates the last time Quinnipiac surveyed Republican primary voters. “We didn’t test any of the others.”

In a poll released Jan. 11, Mack had support from 39 percent of Republican voters and LeMieux had the support of 6 percent.

Nelson’s performance in a potential general election contest with Mack, a Fort Myers member of Congress, has improved thanks to a formidable lead among women, who gave him 46 percent to 32 percent for the Republican. Men split 41 percent each.

Each has a commanding lead among members of his own party, with independents favoring Nelson over Mack 40 percent to 30 percent – with 27 percent undecided.

“President Barack Obama’s surge in Florida is helping Sen. Bill Nelson’s re-election chances,” Brown said in a statement announcing the results. “Just as President Obama’s lead in the presidential race in the Sunshine State is fueled by female voters, so too is Nelson’s.”

Quinnipiac surveyed 1,228 registered voters from March 20 – 26. The poll has a margin of error of plus or minus 2.8 percent.